Friday, November 14, 2008

Food envy

I know I'm too hard on myself. It's not like I'm the tidiest person in the world, or the most productive, either. But we've reached new levels of chaos around here, and it is at one minute, just terrible, and another, incredibly liberating. For instance, right now, there is a large pile of dishes in the sink, and Steve and Glen — who are both sporting similar wild hairdos right now — both need grooming, and I am in charge of grooming in this household, despite my dubious abilities to cut hair. Despite my dubious abilities to cut hair, I got fed up with my own a couple of weeks ago, and was without a car that day (not that it would have made a lick of difference, though), and just went crazy, and cut off piles of it. I goofed up a bit and gave myself some accidental bangs on the upper left, and ultimately, I don't care that much about my lack of symmetry. It will grow back. Or I'll get fed up and do it again, and screw things up even worse. Well see. It might be better if Glen goes up the street to the new shop on Hamilton Ave., Classie Way of Hair (I took a picture of the sign for a recent post), and maybe he can bring Steve too; I'm sure CWoH can do a better job than what I'm able to do, which, right now, is nothing, because I am sitting in front of my computer, and I feel okay about that. Though I'll probably be angry that I took this time to blog, rather than catch up on my sleep. Or get to the dishes. We'll see.

I did, at least, just trim Stevie's brow, before coming in here to yammer away, so he can see. Priorities. I do have them. Sometimes. Buzzing off the rest of his hair requires a bit more time and concentration, so I'll probably get to that next year some time, long after he looks like a dwarf alpaca.

I wanted to write about another area of my life that's suffered in recent weeks: the food area. I spend so much of my time feeding Matthew that I don't have a lot of time for much else, certainly not preparing meals for the adults in the house. A few times, I've fed Matthew while watching the Food Network, which is torturous, so I don't do it much, especially after watching Guy Fieri last week — a dude I cannot bring myself to hate, even though — speaking of grooming earlier — I loathe his grooming affectations. I cannot imagine living with a dude who must spend HOURS to get ready for the day; HOURS positioning each clump of his ridiculous white/yellow hair. I hate his hair so much, though I don't hate the goatee. Goatees are okay. What pains me is the little tiny bit of goatee in the center that's, like, an inch longer than the rest. Oh, how it hurts me to look at that! I hate his jewelry, and wonder what kind of food residue is stuck in it, particularly, in his damn pinky ring. The sweatband scares me a lot: the thought of a guy who NEEDS a sweatband while cooking makes me wonder WHAT could wind up in our food. And, more than anything, I'd like to kill him for the sunglasses on the back of his head. But then he shovels a fried chicken sandwich into his head, or tosses two large dollops of sour cream into his casserole, or, best yet, makes his own dolmas. Dear Lord, I love dolmas. And I love Guy Fieri for making them, at least when I don't feel like killing him for his stupid hair and sunglasses. Maybe all the hours it takes him in front of a mirror to look really stupid would be tolerable if he made me dolmas?

See what I mean? But the gusto with which he jams his pie hole makes up for Guy Fieri's significantly flawed sense of fashion. And who am I to judge, besides? I'm still in my jammies.

The problem of watching Guy Fieri, or really, any food network show, is that I am left with a little, but real, desire to club the host of the show (some more than others, and you know who you are, Rachael Ray), and a misguided sense that I will be able to prepare the same sorts of foods that they do. I have a fussy 12-week-old baby and several other furry reasons who make cooking so difficult now. Recent results have not been stellar, or even worth mentioning. Until last night and this morning, and both meals — if you can call them that — were somewhat of a cheat. Creative cheats, at least. Glen requested Indian food last night, and since we have a well-stocked freezer (chicken, spinach, paneer, naan), and a well-stocked pantry (jarred sauce), I was able to throw it all together, and even embellished it a bit with extra tomatoes, coconut milk, curry, and saffron. I got a bit too ambitious, though, and put a can of prepared gulab jamun on to simmer. In case you've never tried it, gulab jamun, despite a terrible-to-our-English-speaking-ears-sounding-name, is a yummy Indian dessert. They're doughnut hole-sized pastries, that are soaked in a sweet syrup, and flavored a bit with cardamom and rosewater.

Gulab Jamun. My can, for the record, did not contain this many.

Glen does not like gulab jamun, but I grew weary of the can looking back at me, forlornly, and figured I'd eat it over the course of the next few days on my own, dammit.

But we forgot to put it away last night. Sigh. I made it to the kitchen this morning, with only about 3 hours of sleep, since Matthew seems to have gotten his nights and days confused recently. I felt broken, used, and in dire need of caffeine, since sleep was not an option, because at that time, Matthew was still wide awake. I found a cat curled up in the bassinet, and another in the sling. Steve had one of my shoes in his mouth (a shoe that took about a month to find just recently), and my wonderful little pot (a smart-looking white Le Creuset pot Glen found at the thift store for dirt cheap, woohoo!) of gulab jamuns sitting on the stove where I left them last night. I was depressed, and exhausted.

I was also ravenous, since I had been up for the previous 8 hours without a meal, and I do like a little something to eat in the morning even when I've slept properly, unlike other members of my family. I'm not sure why that is. I could give up — I think — any other meal, if I had to, but if I miss my breaky, I'm just so sad. So, I considered my options of getting myself fed quickly, while the baby was still content, and decided, perhaps hastily (we'll see) that I could not let my little jamuns go to waste. I rationalized, ultimately, that a batch of gulab jamuns left out would be as dangerous as leaving out a box of Dunkin Munchins. Okay, Munchins soaked in syrup. But the little Indian confections, at least, were in a covered, enameled iron pot, so I don't think many bacteria got in. But, I cranked up the heat, and brought them to a solid boil, as a preventative measure. I remembered I had some pears in the fridge, so I cut up a couple and added them to the mixture, along with (don't hate me), a dollop of British lemon curd — which sounds just awful, but I promise you, it is not. Lemon curd is like the velvety lemon cream of a lemon pie. Delicious. And I ate some of this concoction with vanilla Stonyfield organic yogurt, and it was so fantastic, I'm glad there are still leftovers, and I hope someone out there is a bit jealous of my creation, though I suspect most of you are frowning at my pathetic gluttony, to the point of getting your face stuck that way. Frown away. I don't care. All that sugar has me completely wired right now; though I'm probably headed for a very, very bad crash, especially if my little boy doesn't sleep tonight. But we'll see. Sleep is overrated, right?

My sister, Jenny, gave me a bread recipe earlier in the week, and I'm hoping I'll be able to make a batch a bit later this afternoon, because Glen has a hockey game on TV tonight, and I want to be able to make little individual pizzas that he can eat in front of his game. It is ambitious to make my own pizza crust, but almost (oh, I hope) foolproof, even with a potentially cranky baby, and a massive load of dishes that much be cleared away first. Famous last words, perhaps.

2 comments:

Anyone who wears shades on the back of his head like that needs his grill kicked in.

I only know this Guy as a shill for TGIFriday's, which means he has no credibility whatsoever with me.

Funny enough, TMZ* cornered him this week, and couldn't get him to say anything good about TGIF, except that it's a "good gig." That was freakin' priceless, and I hope he loses his deal with them over it. What a whore.

*Yes, I was sucked into an installment of TMZ, for the express purpose of seeing the Guy segment. Blow me.

Definite fashion problems, but I do enjoy his show...I was thinking of jumping on my Harley with my son and riding out to dine in some of the fine establishments in Jersey that he visited, but I never got around to it. Partly because they are located in nasty areas and who wants to ride through that?